A Better Mobius
by EpicUltimate
Summary: A not-so-common day highschooler, a slumbering protector, and an unpredictable torturee. A new universe with characters and personalities to rediscover awaits while a set of three Ultimate Lifeforms struggle through their daily lives. Rated M for content-yet-to-come. Hope you enjoy.


3698 Dear Shadow,

I wish I had had the confidence to tell you this in person but, alas, I doubt I'll ever have that confidence. I miss you already and I know you miss me too. Just know that it breaks my heart to leave and I do this only for your safety. After all these years that you've trusted me, you deserve to know. The full truth this time.

When I was a young man I was exiled from the land of the humans for doing something unforgivable. I ended the life of a young boy and injured many others with a creation of mine that went wrong. Even today, I believe my exile was an unreasonable consequence considering the young boy was in fact the cause of the collapse, but I do admit now that it was for the best. In my exile, I became rather dark, to degrees I do not wish to speak and I thought of doing things no one ever should. Despite my complete disregard for any moral compass I was still well known enough to attract the attention of a young man who was part of the science community. With his help I pulled myself out of the dark and became a leader in the science industry. When signs of war between my homeland and the mobians started to appear I quickly dedicated my time to the solving of the deeply rooted issues that the societies faced and, luckily enough, war was barely avoided. I was awarded with the greatest of honors in both lands and with the wealth I massed I became the founder of IfS. For a while everything was good, but then I discovered the Space Colony ARK where my grandfather had been participating in a sinister project. Something he called the Ultimate Lifeform. The humans shut down the operation before it ran to completion and it was a good thing they did. My grandfather had planned on making a pact with a savage alien race, that is, according to his notes. This would lead me to believe he was either crazy or making a serious mistake. Either way, he should not have gone through with it.

Luckily for me, I found all of his notes hidden away and seeing his ideas inspired me. So, after stealing the notes that I found I began my own work on the Ultimate Lifeform, this time without any pacts. Unlike my grandfather, my goal was not to create a soldier or a hero, or even a genius. I wanted to make a son. Sadly, I rushed it. I threw myself so vigorously into my work that I lost track of what was happening on the larger scale in IfS. I had quickly lost a great deal of power in the organization and those who usurped me quickly became mad with the power that IfS provided them.

I've never told you this, but there was another Ultimate Lifeform whom I created. I had developed him to start life at an older age to serve the role of an older brother to you. He had a different set a skills as well but that is unimportant now. When you were finished and hiding you stopped being an option the new leaders of IfS told me that in order to appease them for 'abusing resources' that I had to let you undergo experimentation. I was promised you wouldn't be harmed. You weren't, luckily. When I refused to let you take one of their tests the leaders called me back. They threatened me and you in so many ways. I covered your ears. They gave me a choice, either keep you and risk everything or hand over all of my work, including you. They gave me one day to make up my mind.

It wasn't a very difficult decision. That night I managed to destroy an entire wing of the IfS. Any work that was there, including mine was vaporized and any data kept on the computers disappeared. Your brother was not destroyed, however. Not even I know where he is now, I sent him to a random location. Some day in the next few years he'll finish his slowed development and emerge from his restricting sleep. Maybe you'll even meet him someday.

For now, and until the day comes when everyone recognizes you for what you are, I must leave you to live your own life. Call me only as a last resort. I will get you money, somehow, and one way or another everything will work out.

Your Loving Father,

Dr. Kentabor

Shadow folded the piece of paper and put it back in the envelope only to take it out and read it once more. He had avoided reading the sad confessions of his creator and father for an entire year. Now that he read it once again he found himself slightly overwhelmed. He finally put it down after his third read and stood up from his bed.

Shadow approached his closet wearily. It was a rather spacious closet, accentuated by the fact that Shadow had very few clothes. He has a set of favorite gloves which, he felt, went nicely with the gold rings around his wrist. He had even found a set of shoes to match. He quickly collected them along with a loose jacket and a pair of jeans before returning to the closet entrance and shutting the door behind him.

His room was not the standard high schoolers room as it was supposed to be the main bedroom and used by two. On top of that it remained rather empty as Shadow refused to use it for anything but sleep. In fact, he restricted the number of activities he could do in any of the many rooms of his two story house. He mostly did this simply to consume time walking from room to room. He didn't bore easy and procrastination was an impurity he had the great pleasure of never encountering.

On top of that, he had not participated in any public or private school, relying on himself to keep on top of his own education. Just recently, however, Shadow had received the great pleasure of a short message from his father. After decoding it, Shadow realized to his great shock that his father had informed him that he would be participating in public high school for the next four years. Shadow could have described himself as unprepared for the information but it would have been an understatement. His father had told him that it was for his own good that he start to participate in social interactions and while Shadow disagreed with him strongly, he could not argue with his father. He respected the man too much.

So, on his first day he had woken up hours early, as he did not require the sleep to begin with, read the letter three times, got his clothes and headed off to his attached bathroom. He took a good long shower, blasting the radio as he always did in the mornings. He stepped out of the shower and into the dryer before putting on his clothes.

Moments later, he found himself in his kitchen where he prepared his normal breakfast. He often remarked to himself how pointless and tedious eating really was for him. Still, he returned to the kitchen for another meal every day. He usually made eggs and bacon with toast and finished up with a bowl of cereal but, expecting a rather dry day of attending class, he skipped the bowl of cereal.

He had prepacked his shoulderbag with all of his standard school utensils. He had even packed a large book of advanced chaotic sciences. The entire school scene was bound to be filled with things already known to Shadow but he insisted that he had to learn at least something every day otherwise the entire experience was a waste.

Like the rest of his life, Shadow's participating in school was not without risk. If anyone were to find out who exactly Shadow was they would most likely hunt him down and shortly after, hunt his father down. While, the IfS had given up their hunt for the two of them years prior to Shadows first day of school there was no doubt that they would gladly take up the hunt again had Shadow's father not been the genius he was and managed to either destroy or cover up all evidence of their existence. Shadow was still a bit surprised his creator had managed to get him enrolled in school without serious trouble. Above all else, Shadow needed to keep a low profile. He needed to act normal so that no one would realize just how different he really was. Lives, he reminded himself, were always at stake.

He hurried himself out the door.

Just next door, two young girls about his age stood just outside of the house's front door. One, Shadow would have recognized, had he given them a glance, was his pink hedgehog neighbor named Amy, and, the other, her friend Cream. In the past four or so years of Shadow living there he had seen them often together relaxing in Amy's backyard while he was doing his own activities. They had never learned Shadow's name nor had they asked but he had picked up theirs over the years. Beyond that, he knew very little about them and intended to keep it that way.

Continuing on his path to Crest High School, Shadow headed into the much more urban section of the Mobotropolis. The city was accurately described as the restless city, the streets as well as the sidewalks of Mobotropolis were never empty. Shadow had always enjoyed walking along the busy streets as it remained one of the few places where he was considered completely normal. He need not worry about his safety because he was a part of the diverse crowds. On his way just to his nearby school bats, cats, dogs, foxes, hedgehogs, echidnas, all of different colors, and even humans, who for the longest time had been rivals of the mobians, joined the ranks of the streets.

Eventually, Shadow's game of people watching came to an end as he arrived at the large parking lot of his new school. He had already looked around the outside of the multistory structure. The architect who designed the building, Shadow had decided, was somewhat obsessed with circles to the point that nothing about Crest evaded a relation to them, not even the name. The walls were more often windows than not. The windows themselves darkened based on how much sun hit them on top of being hooked up to the lights for when the sun wasn't providing enough light. The parts of the building that weren't window were some sort of metal that made the school sparkle from almost any angle. Shadow found it rather unappealing.

By then, Shadow's peers had started to arrive, either by vehicle or by foot, at the gates of their new or old prison for another year of torment. The entrance was shaded by a large arch that resembled a crescent. Falling into line with the other students, he crossed the threshold into the 'entrance circle' of Crest. There were many other circles he had yet to see. The central circle, Shadow soon learned, was dedicated mostly to the cafeteria and was connected to a large part of the rest of the circles via either halls or stairs. The building hosted a couple thousand students assuming everyone was attending and each circle hosted a little less than a few hundred students.

Shadow's circle was on the second floor, labeled as the G circle, and was dubbed the 'Grand Circle' by the previous years of students who found G circle unsatisfactory. Most of the teachers had picked it up as well, even creating inspirational posters using the name. Shadow's class was G3 and was located furthest from the entrance to the circle. Shadow was surprised to find that very few students were in the circle.

The lights in G3 were out, however, the door had been left unlocked. Inside, the slow up and down of the teachers breath was all that disturbed the silence of the room. Shadow slowly edged his way into the room and subsequently into the nearest row of seats leaving him in the back corner of the room while the teacher slept at her desk.

Only moments later, as Shadow was about to pull out his copy of _In Depth Concepts and Major Theories in the Chaos Sciences_, another student walked in, interrupted the silence when he accidently hit his bag against the back row. The teacher, who had been sleeping for an unknown amount of time, jolted awake.

"Oh, my," She stood up and searched around the desk for something. Quickly snatching up a few of the papers and attempting to wipe off some of the drool that had managed it's way onto them. Finally, she looked around the room for the source of the sound that had woke her. Finding it caused her to drop her papers back onto the unorganized desk, "You're Miles Prower."

The young, yellow, and, more importantly, two tailed fox seemed thrown off guard by the comment, "Uhh, yeah. That's me. You're Mrs. Velvet, right?"

"Yes, and I must say, it's an honor to be your teacher. I read a lot about you," replied, "Go ahead and pick your seat, I just have to go and finish something really quickly," She grabbed the papers once again and headed toward the door while Miles searched the dark room for a place to sit.

It was when Mrs. Velvet flipped on the lights on her way out that Miles noticed the dark hedgehog sitting in the corner. His first reaction was surprise but it quickly changed to the most fake form of courage Shadow had ever seen. He slid into the back row and sat down right beside Shadow.

"Hey, my name's Miles Prower, but you can call me Tails. All my friends do. I'm sure you can tell why," Miles had rehearsed the line. Shadow could tell.

"Nice to meet you, Miles. My names Shadow. I'm sure you can tell why," Shadow replied.

Miles chuckled awkwardly, finding defeat in Shadow's subtle rejection, "Yeah,... you don't mind if I sit here, do you?"

Shadow honestly did. He prefered if no one sat near him but, considering it, Miles wasn't the worst he could get stuck with, "As long as you don't mind sitting by me," Shadow remarked pulling out his book.

Miles was about to go back to handling his own business when he spotted the book, "Is that an _In Depth Concepts and Major Theories in the Chaos Sciences_?"

Shadow paused to consider how unlikely it was that any given freshman student would know about the book before answering, "Yes, yes it is."

"Can I see?" Miles asked eagerly, "My version isn't going to arrive for another couple of days."

Shadow sighed sliding the book over to Miles, "Go for it," At least Tails wouldn't bother him for a while, Shadow reasoned, a long while if Tails intended to read the entire book.

Slowly, more and more students began to fill the rows of the room and still the teacher remained missing in action. Among the many students that filled the empty space Shadow spotted Amy and Cream. He wasn't sure if they had noticed him in their class or if they had even seen him that morning. The two girls, either way, took up two of the seats in the middle row of the three row classroom.

When a teacher finally stepped through the doors it was not Mrs. Velvet but a tall badger donned with a tag labeling him as Mr. Coreway and armed with a warm cup of coffee. The students broke from their conversations and settled into their seats as Coreway reached the front of the room. His natural flow caught Shadows eyes. He looked over the class of students, making sure to see everyones face before beginning.

"I am Mr. Coreway as some of you might be able to tell from my tag," He pointed out his accessory, "I will be one of your teachers for your freshman year of Crest High School. As you know, we will have another teacher here with us. Her name is Mrs. Velvet. I favor the sciences while Mrs. Velvet will perfect your skills in the arts as well as Social Studies," He paused to take a sip of his coffee, "Now understand that in this class I am the bad cop. I will be the one to catch you and I will be the one to define justice in this classroom. Use your brain, don't make bad choices, and we'll become good friends. On the other hand, get on my bad side, and only Mrs. Velvet will be able to save you," He casually threatened.

"You could have at least waited for me before scaring the kids," Mrs. Velvet arrived at the doorway as if on cue.

"Just my usual beginning of the year speech. It's nothing special," Coreway shrugged taking another sip of his coffee.

"Well, students," Mrs. Velvet carried a large pile of papers in her arms and starting her way toward the front of the class. She began her speech, "I just want to say that I look forward to working with all of you and that if any of you need someone to talk to, for any reason, that I am here to listen," She finally put down the papers and any strain still remaining in the crimson echidnas voice disappeared, "I'm sure there is much to learn about all of you and I look forward to learning as much as I can."

"Speaking of learning about each other," Coreway cut in, "When we do projects you will be divided into random groups. No choosing partners, or switching either. I hope you all look forward to many introductions."

"Later today and everyday for the rest of the year, there will be a short break in the morning and in the afternoon as well as a lunch break," Mrs. Velvet picked up where he left off, "The days will consist, at first, of learning mathematics, the sciences, history, an art of your choice, latin, writing and reading strategies, and, on some days, an activity outside. Not necessarily in that order."

Hours of schooling later, the bell finally rang for lunch. Shadow's fellow students rushed from their seats as they flowed into the G circle toward the cafeteria. Shadow, along with Miles, took their time to get from their seats and wander, lunches in hand, out to the halls. Miles was eager to start a conversation despite Shadows cold facade. Maybe Miles had somehow seen through his disguise, or maybe he saw Shadow as the best he could get. Either way they sat across from each other at lunch.


End file.
